Gluttony
by Carmen Wayne
Summary: A challenge fic involving the sin of Gluttony. Sparda, under a false guise, continues his work in protecting humanity in the shadows, but unfortunately that includes against humans themselves, from time to time. Hell is seductive to the mortal mind.


Gluttony

By: Kara (Carmen Wayne)

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**Warnings:** Language, mature themes, dealings with the occult. Nudity. Stuff. Possible missed htmling, since this was originally posted on LiveJournal. Also, reposted a few times to fix the fact that it continuously is screwing up this first paragraph.

Alive since before the creation of man, without a bias in regard to how that creation came to be, the eternal creature watched as they grew from simple to complex; from peaceful, to chaotic. It always amused him, to listen to the old poets, of how there was _first_ chaos, and _then_ peace. The humans of the present were not those he'd come to love in the past. The humans of the present were not those who caused his heart to turn from anger and sin to love and kindness.

Humanity started off brilliant. Pure, innocent. Even at the time of his rise to the light—that fabled time when the demon Commander raised his sword, not to the humans living under Hell's oppression, but against his dark king—humans had a certain feel of innocence to them. Though capable of crimes just as terrible as demons, their simplicity was what endeared him so, he supposed, and no, he could not shun the many for the few. They were silly mortals. Children, really, whom he would spend many, many years in his legendary reign in shadows over them, teaching them how to correct themselves. To grow, to be better and decent, without ever knowing their guiding light was a creature as old as time itself.

However, as the centuries rolled on, he began to see Hell's toll on the behaviors of those mortals he spent so long attempting to help and protect. Corruption to their minds, corruption to their genes—Hell slowly grew more and more creative. More and more spiteful of their binds in which he'd placed them, as they had but only slim few openings to slither out in escape, to roam the mortal world, but how it was enough, if he was not there to stop them. And even for the legendary Sparda, it was impossible to be in two places at once.

Closer and closer to the present times: oh, how difficult tutelage to the right and just had become. What humans were so long ago… that had been what Sparda fought to protect. Not what they had become in the present day. But, he supposed, even with the small help he had to that day, Hell was just too vast in numbers alone to keep it from spreading like wildfire, to encompass an entire world then full of lies and hate.

He was reminded of it, the night he accepted invitation to the private soirée of a set of individuals believing he was naught but a member of the idle rich. He'd worked many years to build a faux family for himself, so it was quite easy to tote a familiar last name, and claim himself a son or grandson, and be accepted with menial proof. A ring here, a secret fact there… quite easy, sadly.

The get-together was fair enough, with five individuals; six with himself included. The master of the gratuitous household, John Eshwood, allowed for an equally gratuitous dinner, in which the four men and two women discussed familial ties, business, the weather and profit alike. It was nothing difficult for Sparda, under a simple guise of Scott Leviath, to keep up with. He was very particular about keeping his facts straight, after all, and not once tripped up, even in all the points it felt as though he were being tested.

One of the women was a honey blonde, draped in black and diamonds. She toted a champagne flute the entire dinner, only setting it down long enough to cut away at her veal plate (which had earned a sharp lashing from one of the men, of how she could possibly eat that considering how veal was produced, as he munched at his salad), and made sure to have a seat right next to the white haired (platinum blond, as far as humans were concerned) man. She seemed to be the primary tester of the group, Elaine Sashbury, as her family was said to have the longest ties to the fictional Leviath family. It made "Scott" roll his eyes, if only in imagination, because Elaine was getting increasingly drunk, and increasingly less consistent with her so-theorized testing.

"So, Scott." The champagne flute was in her hand, yet again, as she leaned in close to him. Her dress was cut high on the legs, and low on her breasts, and she was clearly attempting to display herself. The lace of her equally dark bra had emerged in her lean, and he was sure it was quite nice in full view, but after one (obligatory) glance, his eyes met hers. "_Where_, oh where has your family been tucked away?" She feigned a pout, her body swaying slightly under her loosened muscle control. "My dearest grandpapa spoke of yours oh-so-much."

"Perhaps the champagne bubbles are bursting a bit too loud in your head, Elaine," interjected the vegetarian, Rob Fortraut. "He already said that they've been busy galloping across Europe."

"So passé." It was Elaine's simple response, as she continued to lean towards Sparda with a playful smile that only broke long enough to sip at her glass. "Poor thing. I bet you were so lonely."

"It's not _Siberia_, Elaine," John said, though he wore an amused smile as his eyes locked on their guest. "There are _people_ in Europe." It provoked another internal eye roll from the repented demon. "I'm more curious about your cane. A bit young, no?"

The cane he referred to was the simple black and gold trimmed cane Sparda had meandered in with, with an awkward gait and all. While actually unnecessary to his physical abilities, it was very important as it was but one of many tools to help him go by in an increasingly weapons-paranoid world. "An accident involving a horse in Germany," he replied without skipping a beat. "A few small bones healed a bit irreparably, and it was enough to bring cause for the cane. Unfortunately, as it draws rather rude attention at times."

Yes, it was a shot at John. Fake or no, where were the manners? Besides, it was all about proving that one was not a pushover with those sorts. The whole situation was suspicious, to his mind and his senses. The idle rich rarely had small affairs such as the one Sparda found himself sitting in on at that moment without there being some ulterior reason for it. The house was shaded in darkness all too familiar as demonic, but he had yet to quite place a finger on what, precisely, he was dealing with. And like most of their sorts, their bodies screamed from abuse and corruption. Their words were foul, and it wouldn't take a demon to realize it, sadly. Sparda's help through the centuries didn't only come from the hands of those as eternal as he, after all.

The verbal shot was received, and taken with the receptiveness that Sparda would expect from one of John's position. With a small laugh over the rim of his own glass, and one final sip, he pushed himself to his feet. It was as though he passed out a silent beckon, as the others followed. Elaine drew most his attention, a bit involuntarily so, as she leaned towards him in her exaggerated labor of getting to her feet, her breasts waving within inches of his nose. He had half the mind to jerk away, and look indignant, as though she was attempting to box out his eyes, but he remained as calm as he had been. That was neither the time nor the place to be a smartass; he had a wife with whom he could do that with later, bidding what the five were planning didn't end in disaster (and bloodshed).

He'd taken his ring off too (silly thing, but his bride insisted, and he was hardly the sort to deny her the simple pleasures she enjoyed). Not that it would make a slight bit of difference among individuals where vows were mere formalities, easily broken when someone else came along to fulfill their never ending lustful wants.

Out of the dining room the group walked, John taking a lead as Elaine took to walking beside 'Scott', and the other three fell behind. It was obvious they were boxing him in, but Sparda kept his eyes on John over all else. As though it wasn't glaringly obvious that John was the ringleader of the group, and if anything was going to go awry, it would be at his signal. Even as Elaine, still toting her champagne flute, wormed her free arm around his, Sparda kept his eyes on John. Just as well, as he spent no time at all to start talking.

"Are you of old wealth or new, Scott?" he asked. His face played between concentrated and playful, as he looked between what was in front of him, and the group behind him.

It was a question asked, not to mean as most thought. It wasn't if his family (fictitious as it was) had money spanning back through the generations, or only back a couple. No, it was if they earned it more purely (old), or by more sinister means (new). The older, the more honest; the newer, usually the more occulted. Sad, really, and more sad it was that Sparda knew precisely how to answer it. "Old?" It came out as a rather sardonic question; condescending to be unsuspicious. To not know the meaning of that question was, truly, all the better.

"Money is power, Scott," John said. It was fluid as he began to put a skip into his step. "It's what determines who are gods and who are insects." Sparda hated speeches like that. Every last one of them had their own version of it. "Do we care about those in starving in Africa? Or the tortured and persecuted under the government of China? Yes. Well, we pretend we do, because our oh-so-loyal and liberal stances appeal to the younger generations." He spun around and started to hop backwards. "That's what every politician does, and that's what every celebrity does. We prance around, pretending we give a shit about the poor, feral individuals that infect this planet like disease, because in the end, that makes the public happy and want to support us. They buy our products, support our logos. Our logos condition the brains of those who don't care what we do, so they buy what we sell anyway. Our products, our movies, our songs, whatever it may be.

"Money is power, my dear friend. But to get there, sometimes you have to make certain accommodations to your beliefs and lifestyles. And if your children wish to surpass you, they have to do so to a greater extent."

His motions were grand as he gestured around in demonstration, as if that would convince the sixth member of the group of what he was saying. Fortunately for him, Sparda decided to be accommodating to for _him_ a small extent, keeping up the clueless act from before. "What sort of accommodations?"

"A brilliant question, and perfectly timed." John snapped a finger and pointed at him, as though he was quite the suave individual. His feet stopped at a set of French doors, and with absolutely no show of climatic build (in comparison to his prior behavior of grandeur), pushed his way through and into the room beyond.

It was then that Elaine, who had taken to sniffing at Sparda's neck, despite his blatantly ignoring her, released him to proceed in ahead of her. However, Sparda found himself pausing to fight a seethe from crossing over his face where they could see. With the opening of the doors came a waft to his senses, both basic and demonic. The stench of blood wreaked havoc on his nose and his eyes; the heaviness of death and sorrow weighted him down. Demons were naturally able to pinpoint negativity in all its forms, which was caused violent paranormal activity to spike in areas where it was most prevalent, to exacerbate the situation. Turned as he was, Sparda still was what he was. It simply meant that he met those feelings with feelings of pity and anger, versus joy and excitement.

After the initial waft passed by, 'Scott' crossed through the entryway to observe what was in the room. He could hear the others slowly following him in, Elaine letting out a drunken giggle as she stumbled loudly on the hardwood floor, and some of her champagne sloshed out and onto the floor in front of her. Not that Sparda was paying much attention, as he took in the scene.

For the most part, it was what he expected. It was common. An altar with candles and fragrances, with symbols gaudily latched all over, ranging from the typical pentagrams turned upside down, to bones and jars filled with suspiciously human-like pieces.

Yes, everything was very much as he expected, except for the new individual in their presence. Forced into an uncomfortable arch from her perch on bare knees on the floor, the dark haired woman before them looked pitiful and unwilling. The fear was starting to increase as her body tried to heave from its bonded shape as the realization that her captors were in the room swept over her.

Her arms were crossed and held fastened in a stoop behind her, as a tight leather latch wrapped each shin and ankle as they were crossed equally so. Her form was bare, aside from obviously uncomfortable straps wrapping and holding her body just so, bruising her flesh from their taut strain. Small streaks of red ran down the top of her cheekbones, out from under a bizarre blindfold over her eyes. It was concave between circular loops over where each her eyes would have been.

The young woman's body was reddened around her most sensitive areas, clearly from a recent wax removal of 'unnecessary' hair. But it was that redness that, unfortunately, drew his attention lower, to a small puddle of blood making its way from under her clasped legs. For a moment, Sparda wondered if she was menstruating, until he made a habitual glance about the room, and saw a bowl shaded by the altar, containing dark, fleshy chunks of whatever they saw fit to pull from her. There wasn't much there, but he didn't presume what it might be, nor did he care to know. Not when John was walking around to stand behind her, by her head.

Humans were more amazing than they really understood, Sparda often insisted. The way the young woman, with her eyes bound as they were, and in the obvious pain she was in, took notice to the silent approach and was little out quiet whimpers that fell on none but Sparda's ears. "It's a bit crude," John explained. His hand dropped down to allow his fingers to play with the young woman's lips. An obvious attempt was made for her to writhe away, even though the restraints prevented her from doing so. "However…" A smile crept across his face. "…It's not like anyone will miss her."

"I think it would be best advisable for you to let her go," 'Scott' said. His hands clutched at the cane's knob in front of him, ready to grip it and release the bladed weapon it concealed.

"And I don't think you realize the severity of the situation, Scott." The words came with the sound of pattering shoes and the shutting of the French doors behind Sparda. Sparda offered a glance in that direction, to make sure that was all they were doing, when a loud pop and the sound of metal grinding against bone caused him to snap around, the sound enough to get him to legitimately widen his eyes.

A hand cradled the back of the now shrieking woman, as John's other hand shoved down on the oddly shaped blindfold. It took only seconds more for a crack to emit from her face as the forcing paid off, and those two circular pieces disappeared, sunken into her eye sockets. "If it's the death of these vermin that appease the gods of this world?" he started over her screams. He paused as his hand slipped behind her head, to release the blindfold. "Then we'll give them what pleases them."

Hands grasped the blindfold's straps tightly, and using the woman's weight with gravity's pull, John started to pull upwards steadily. Only after the woman was lifted several inches off the ground, did the metal loops dislodge from her eye sockets with a sickening pop and a spray of blood. Her knees slammed into the wood floor with a sickening crack just before she toppled over to her side, her body beginning to spasm in a fit of shock.

After two huffs, to control the escalating anger at John's _brazen_ actions, Sparda's right hand lifted to his own eyes, as his body straightened out of its "injury riddled" state. Thumb into the right eye, index into the left, the pads of his fingers caught hold of the blue contacts coloring his naturally crimson eyes. They were swiped free from his own eyes and smashed together before he flicked them to the side. A blink passed over his eyes as they rolled in their sockets to look at John, who was busy tossing the blindfold to the side to notice. "I daresay, sir, that was a _very big mistake_."

"Oh?" John said with a chuckle, taking his time to look back at the man. "Or else you'll…" His voice stopped, his eyes catching sight of the change immediately.

The response offered was a sneer of a grin, as the cane was jerked up into both hands, and with a twist, the long, narrow blade was exposed. "Now, let's see where that money gets you this night, hm?"


End file.
